


We Accept the Love We Believe We Deserve

by shortitude



Series: What There Was Left of Love [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Companion Piece, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 13:12:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4138863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortitude/pseuds/shortitude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time she goes to Bellamy after Mount Weather, he isn’t even surprised.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Accept the Love We Believe We Deserve

**Author's Note:**

  * For [semele](https://archiveofourown.org/users/semele/gifts).



> This fic is a companion piece to _What There Was Left of Love_ , from Raven's point of view. You'll notice the dialogue is the same. However, it expands a little on the events prior to the first fic, from Raven's side of the story, and as a warning I should make it very clear that **this series is not nice to Wick**. Okay, so maybe we're not outwardly bashing, but we're not afraid to call a spade a spade -- and a dick a dick. 
> 
> As a sidenote, I'd like to thank **semele** for giving me so much to work with, and letting me enable her into a collab.

The first time she goes to Bellamy after Mount Weather, he isn’t even surprised. 

It should catch her attention that this is happening again, but Raven is too wrapped up in her own head, still ruminating the events that brought her to Bellamy’s tent in the first place. 

\--

It’s been a few weeks since she was carried back to Camp Jaha by Wick, and in those weeks Raven’s had the time to recovery without the stress of upcoming battles hanging over her shoulders quite constantly. Though Kyle has always kept himself in her peripheral presence if not closer, she hasn’t had a reason to think it would be a bad thing. In fact – and this had been her mistake, it turns out – Raven had actually thought that they’d finally settled the issue between themselves to a degree. 

The thing is, Raven doesn’t enjoy the idea that she might be the sort of person who uses people; actually, when they’d slept together the first time, she’d thought reasonably that she’d made pretty clear what she wanted out of the encounter. It was only after what she’d thought was going to be one last fuck before possibly dying, when she’d climbed out of bed while he lingered, when he proved to her that he hadn’t understood her at all. The fight within Mount Weather, that had been close to hitting the target, because it was undeniable that after Finn – after her mother, too, to some extent – Raven expected people to hurt her, and she kept them at a distance before they could as a result. Asking him not to leave her alone hadn’t been a declaration of love, it had been simple Raven exposed and vulnerable; a cumulus of things all leading to her crumbling down when death seemed like pretty much a certain thing. 

It had never occurred to her that he would take it to mean they were now a Raven-And-Kyle sort of deal; maybe she had put too much faith in how much he actually understood her. He’d made sure to make her pay for that assumption, in due time. 

To give him credit, until Raven’s recovery, he hasn’t given her any indication that she needed to be cautious, to underline that they were not _a thing_ , that she wanted to come back to being whole first before even considering it. 

And then, it happens. Abby gives her the green light to go back to active duty as the mechanic of the Camp, and in that same evening – maybe ten, twenty minutes later – Kyle tries to kiss her. The worst thing she could do, in this case, would be to snap; it’s exactly what happens. It shocks her that he doesn’t seem to understand why it’s such a bad idea to grab her first, why she’d flinch and shrink away, why she’d try to put as much distance between them as possible. 

He looks personally offended by it, while she struggles to _breathe_ , and remind herself that nobody’s going to ruin her recovery, nobody’s going to put her on an operation table and drill into her leg again, that she’s _safe_. 

“I thought we’d been through this already, Reyes.” He – for all that he’d carried her back from the mountain, for all that she’d clung to him then – suddenly does not feel safe, at all. 

“I can’t—“ She tries, at least; she’d like credit for trying, but he doesn’t seem interested.

He’s frowning, looking at her like she’s just proven him right about something, and Raven feels dirty. Like she’d felt in the workshop with him, while he’d told her to figure herself out, only _worse_. “I guess I thought after what happened in Mount Weather –“ Raven here forces herself not to flinch, again – “you’d realize that I wasn’t just some slab of meat there when it was convenient.” 

She opens her mouth to protest, but the excuse dies flat on her tongue. Was she giving him that impression? By what – not wanting to kiss him? Backing away when he leaned in for her? Wouldn’t it have been exactly that, her using him again, if she’d just let him? It’s undeniable that her libido is acting up again, awake at the worst of times, but she’s actually tried to stopper it. To figure her shit out. What more does he want?

He doesn’t tell her, storming out of their workshop before she can ask more. 

\--

It’s inevitable, the stages she goes through after the outburst. 

There is shock. Kyle’s anger comes so out of left-field to Raven, who thinks she’s made it pretty clear in their interactions of the past weeks that she does consider him important, her friend, but that – much like she’d done with Bellamy after their only tryst – he mattered more to her as a friend than romantically. She thought she’d made that all clear, in the interim of her physical recovery; her emotional recovery was going to be her priority now, because hell if she didn’t deserve that the most. 

Then, there’s anger. Apparently, not having her shit figured out to just want to sleep with him and nothing more was bad. _But_ , so was not having her shit figured out to _not_ want to sleep with him was equally horrid of her. 

There’s amazement. Because she can’t be anything other than amazed, when it feels like she’s been called a slut, in no actual words. That look he gave her, the sudden way he’d cut the conversation short, the way he’d left, the dirty way she still feels in the aftermath. Like her decisions being for herself don’t matter?

And there, it bleeds into pure bitterness, with a vengeful hue. So this is how it is. ‘Get your shit together’ means realize you only want to sleep with me and be with me because you owe me that more than you owe yourself to feel better. ‘Been through this already’ didn’t mean that he remembered she’d had to have the words ‘don’t leave me alone’ plied out of her first. The translation – and Raven’s no linguist, but god does it not echo clearly in her head – is more the likes of ‘you’d agreed to be my girlfriend’. 

Sometimes, whenever Raven was pissed off at something Finn did wrong, she took on projects that could keep her distracted. Now, that she’s pissed off at herself more than at anyone else, the solution she finds it to go straight for what will help her self-destruct first.

\--

The first time she goes to Bellamy after Mount Weather, he isn’t even surprised. 

Maybe it’s because this wouldn’t be the first time she’s used him as a solution to her boy-related frustrations, or maybe it’s just because he’s actually decent. If it’s the latter, she’ll have better reasons to feel like shit after this than the broken ego of a grown crybaby. As it is, she’s wrapped up in her own problems, and paces his tent until he looks about ready to ask her _what’s wrong_. 

“I don’t want to think anymore,” she says, shaking her head. She doesn’t, it’s true; overthinking is what makes things suck, and she just wants right now to have a reason to feel good. To have a reason to feel good, without feeling like scum after. “Do you want to…”

“Do I want what?” 

She gets annoyed here, like he needs her to spell it out. Like he _still_ needs her to spell it out. (She gets annoyed at herself too, because what the hell is she doing, coming here? Using someone ‘like a slab of meat’ just to prove what – that Wick’s right?) She lashes out with a barked, “Take off your shirt,” and practically rips her own clothes off as an ice-breaker. 

It’s a sorry affair, the second time they share, but not for the lack of trying on his part. It’s her, it’s her fault; maybe she’s hexed. At one point – and this isn’t fair, because it happens while Bellamy kisses her neck in that same soft way that had made her breath catch once before – she actually considers that maybe this is who she is without Finn. Loveless, unloveable, too angry and sharp and too proud to want things to happen; she wants the sex but not the emotions. It _had_ been different with Finn, because he’d won her over as a friend before he took her virginity, because she’d loved him impossibly much. Maybe her fate is to find out that it won’t ever get better than Finn, because who even bothers with knowing her when she’s a caustic force on her best days; almost enough to make her wish she’d never let him go. 

Angry, on the verge of an emotional breakdown, she buries her face in the crook of Bellamy’s shoulder and squeezes her thighs around him; he comes inside her, and despite it not being groundbreaking sex, it has the desired effect of taking her out of her head. 

Even if it’s for one second, until he apologizes. She shrugs it off, because what does it matter at this point if she came or didn’t come. She did it, she used him like a convenient slab of meat and proved that Kyle was right; one hour after a fight with him, and this is exactly what she goes out and does. She has to get out, from under him and from this tent, before Bellamy comes to terms with what she is, too.  
Raven gets so tangled in her own thoughts, that she almost doesn’t hear him breaking the silence while she gets dressed. "Are you okay, Raven?" he asks as he watches her put her clothes back on. "You look... How are you?"  
Her silence is infinitesimal; a few milliseconds are all it takes for her to feel a flush of surprise. How many more times is she going to use Bellamy, before he stops asking her if it helped? Curtly, she offers a perfunctory, "I'll be fine." 

Honestly, though? She’s not so sure. 

Here she thought she had herself figured out, at least. Sex and feelings might not be linked together for Raven, but there are always ways in which emotions tie in with sex. She uses _it_ , as a way to express herself better than words could; when Finn was her boyfriend, she’d just as soon use it to get them tired enough to sleep as she would to thank him for being so amazing and entirely more than what she deserved. Being naked, letting someone touch her and see her and hear her when she’s at her most vulnerable, there’s nothing uninvolved about that. 

Maybe she hasn’t voiced that well enough to Kyle, maybe he hasn’t gotten it. But then, why does Bellamy understand? "You really don't care who you sleep with, do you?" she shoots once she's fully clothed. It seem to bring Bellamy up short.

"What? Raven, I... Where did this come from?"

Apparently, she’s wrong. Does he care? Regardless of the person, would sex not be all that he’d be getting out of it – hey, he came, good for him, right? 

It hits her, finally, that she’s just as subtly called him a slut. _Great, now I’m Wick_. She wants to apologize, she honestly _does_ , but he brings her up short this time around.

"Would you like to stay?" he asks, standing in front of her. "I don't like being here alone. There's some smoked meat in that box," he offers as soon as he has pants on. "And I think I might have apples. Have you eaten?"

The offers and the question shock her so much that she’s stunned into simply shaking her head. No, she hasn’t eaten a thing since lunch, her stomach grumbling now that it’s been reminded. 

Wordlessly, Bellamy offers her an apple, which she takes. Their fingers brush together again, and it’s ironically this gesture that makes Raven wonder at why it’s always okay when Bellamy touches her. Why it wasn’t when Kyle tried to. 

She takes a bite, the taste of the apple surprisingly tart, probably still not ripe enough. “Aren’t you mad?” she asks, afterwards, because part of her just can’t let it go. “I mean, coming to you…” She needs to be sure. She needs to not have to deal with another Kyle. She needs to not _be_ that person who pushes people away or uses them, with no middle-ground.

“We’re friends, Raven. You’re good.”

Bellamy doesn’t seem to mind. He doesn’t seem to mind her staying – he did ask – until well after they’ve eaten, and Raven lingers. If she were to use the same sort of metaphor, staying in Bellamy’s tent and almost falling asleep against him makes her feel clean. 

Although it’s unnecessary, a few nights later she brings over a box full of food as apology, and joins him for that one too.

\--

The second time it happens isn’t meant to happen. 

Things with her and Kyle are so cold now that it’s almost impossible for them to work together, and she’s even heard rumours from Sinclair about him having requested a transfer through official channels. It stings, this sort of proof that what little she did have to give hadn’t been enough, or hadn’t come as fast as he’d wanted it. So she’s determined, for many reasons, to not fuck up any more friendships, tenuous or not. 

The fact is, Bellamy might as well be her most solid friendship on the ground. She’s more aware of it than ever, as they share another meal in his tent. His knee brushes hers, and she doesn’t want to move away from him. She feels safe here, she feels so impossibly _welcome_ here, and it’s hilarious given the rocky beginnings they’d had. 

It isn’t meant to happen; she isn’t going to sabotage herself like this. Except he looks at her in a way that makes something inside her chest clench, and a second later she’s kissing him, kissing him, kissing him. 

She’s impatient in her want. It takes her by surprise, like a tidal wave; he kisses her back, pulls her in his lap, and when she feels him hard between her legs all she gets is impatience and a feeling of relief. He wants this too. _Good_. 

Whatever he asks, she barely hears it; reaches for his cock and squirms to get closer, and whispers out a quick, “Inside.” It’s not better than the last time, but it’s still a balm; she doesn’t need to come to feel good. This time, it’s enough to not feel like scum for using him.

After that, they seem to reach an arrangement. Bellamy is easy, because he can flip the switch between her friend and the person to gets to fuck her without as much of a hitch. He’s easy, because he understands very quickly that sex is Raven’s painkiller, and gives it to her without protest or question after the first two stumbles. They settle into that routine, and she doesn’t need more than this. With Bellamy, she gets to tolerate touch, and feels good for those brief moments, and it’s enough. 

\--

Now if only he would stop noticing things. 

She was only deluding herself by thinking he wouldn’t notice; Bellamy’s smarter than what anyone gives him credit for, and when it comes to her he seems to have a sharp eye about things. 

She thinks she’s got it figured out. Sex, herself, what she deserves and what she wants. Then one night, she’s proven wrong. 

\--

“I’m okay,” she says quietly. “You can go on.” _Just go on_ , she pleads quietly into the dark. His wrist is still in her hand where she caught it, and she’s glad he hasn’t managed to get to the flashlight because she feels the corners of her eyes burn.

“Raven…”

Now her throat, burning; ear burning, and that’s with shame. She tries again, with more conviction. “I’ll be fine. You can go on.” _Just go on_.

“What do you want me to do?” 

Again, not the first time he’s asked. She bites her lip just to feel the sobering effect of that hint of pain, and though she knows it sounds harsh and maybe dampens the mood completely, it’s still how she says it. “You don’t need to baby me,” she answers quickly. “I’m okay. I won’t break.”

For a silly, brief moment, she actually thinks she’s gotten away with it. Now he’ll go back to kissing her – and this part, she can say without shame that she enjoys so very much – and slip inside her and stop treating her like she’ll break. She won’t; she’s constantly letting him touch her, does he not know how big that is? 

But he knows; that’s the problem, sometimes even Raven forgets how sharp he is. A terrible shot, but so good at reading people it hurts. He moves his hands, not to pull her closer, but to set her free. 

“You can let go now,” he says as his hand finds her face, fingers resting lightly on her cheek. “Whatever it is you’re doing to yourself, you can let it go.”

She could die. And maybe a part of her does, right there; the bitter, unsure part. She thinks of kissing him again, but it wouldn’t be enough for this moment. Kissing is almost as easy as saying hello between them, almost meaningless. 

So instead, _she_ is the tender one. She shows him where to touch her, but experiences the whole process like she’s divided: one Raven in her own skin, bringing his hand to her shoulder, and one Raven watching from above. That latter Raven is the one that sees the exact moment when she _does_ let go, when he draws his fingers down her spine and makes her want to unravel. 

If she turns away from him at all, it’s because she feels a knot in her throat she has no explanation for right now, and wants to give no explanation for right now. He makes the distance between them – which to Raven feels like miles, for a moment – disappear by pressing up behind her, and oh she likes the way his breath feels at the nape of her neck. 

After, for a while, it’s easy to close her eyes and let him, show him. He learns fast; she winces because she’s too wound up for any direct touches and he adapts without a hitch. _Let go_ keeps echoing in her brain, in his careful and low voice, and she listens. She listens to that, and for a while thoughts of

_Not the way I want to be loved._

_Get your shit together._

_I thought we’d been through this already._

_It’s what you do, isn’t it, you push people away before they get close?_

\-- all gone. 

And then Raven, too: gone. It’s almost like finding a long lost friend, coming. She arches into the reunion first, then sinks back into it, and lets his fingers carry her. The crying, well – she can’t really explain that. 

Maybe that’s why she makes sure to leave as soon as possible. Maybe that’s enough vulnerability for one night, and maybe that’d be more than what he’d signed up for; he got her to come, that’s his merit and he can be smug about it, but tears were probably not on his mind when he’d done it so she spares them both the conversation.

**Author's Note:**

> I know. I'm pretty shocked too, that this was actually tamer as far as rating goes.


End file.
